Through our explorers unit, I have been making explorer trading cards for each person that we study. I got the free template from {Ginger Snaps}. I easily added pictures of the explorers that we covered.
Then I did a timeline along my ceiling to show how the clustered during the appropriately-named Age of Exploration.
Back to the trading cards. To assess the students (and pull in some CCSS), I asked them to assign a value to each explorer, much like a sports collector might assign a value to a baseball card. We talked about how baseball cards were valued (rookie card, MVP, great stats, etc.) and talked about how that might translate to explorers. When they assigned a value, they had to give me an explanation on why that decided on that value. As I circulated, I heard some really great conversations about the explorers' contributions to history. I also heard conversations about how they shouldn't be ranked on how attractive they were (I kid you not - every time I handed out a new card, some of the kids would comment about his attractiveness...) or if the students liked them or not (ie. Columbus, Cortes, and Pizarro).
I was very impressed with their focus on this particular project, and I will definitely revisit this assessment next year.
